The United States has lodged a formal diplomatic protest with Beijing over the incident, in which the Chinese fighter jet is said to have flown close to a US Navy patrol plane and carried out acrobatic manoeuvres.
Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said the intercept happened on Tuesday, 125 miles east of Hainan Island - the site of a sensitive Chinese submarine base near Japan.
The Chinese aircraft flew as close as 20-30ft (7-10 metres) to the P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol plane, flying over and under it, before carrying out a barrel roll over the top of it - showing that it was armed.
Adm Kirby said: "The Chinese jet also passed the nose of the P-8 at 90 degrees with its belly toward the P-8 Poseidon, we believe to make a point of showing its weapons load."
"This kind of behaviour is not only unprofessional, it's unsafe. And it is certainly not in keeping with the kind of military-to-military relations that we'd like to have with China."
In April 2001, a similar aggressive intercept of US EP-3E spy plane by a Chinese F-8 fighter in the same area resulted in a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and forced the American plane to make an emergency landing at a base on Hainan.
The 24 American air crew members were held for 11 days until Washington apologized for the incident, which soured US-Chinese relations in the early days of President George W. Bush's first administration.
The Obama administration condemned the latest incident, with Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes calling it a "deeply concerning provocation".
He said: "What we've encouraged is constructive military-to-military ties with China and this type of action ... clearly violates the spirit of that engagement, and we've made our concerns known directly to Beijing."
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